Z. Rider

Review copy

Jaime & Ray Ford, and Danny Ferry are the musicians who make up "Two Tons of Dirt." You might think, what a cool band name, what's it mean? According to Ray - 'Cause that's how much they throw on your grave.

It's seems like they've been on tour for years, but it's finally winding down. Time to get back home and work on their next album. Just a few more dates. After a show in North Carolina, Dan and Ray decide to walk back to their hotel and take a shortcut through an alley. Uh, show more oh. Shortcuts, alleys, and horror novels are NEVER a good combination. This is where Dan is attacked and bit on the back of his neck by something.

"The thing smacked into the back of his neck like a softball, pitching him forward." Was it a bat? If it wasn't, what could it be? Before long, Dan is fighting headaches and then there's the buzzing, like bees, driving him to distraction. So much so, he winds up slapping his car, hard. Hard enough to slice the edge of his hand, drawing blood. When he shoves the cut in his mouth and sucks the blood to stem the bleeding, the buzzing stops and the headaches are gone. And so it begins.

Although, Dan and his band mates aren't the only ones affected, they do come up with an effective way of dealing with what is happening. Not everyone is so lucky, if you want to call what they have to do, lucky. While the world around them deteriorates, they gather together family and friends together and try to avoid venturing out after dark.

A lot of the story is about the band-mates and their relationships. The author did an exceptional job developing these characters and giving the reader the chance to truly get to know them. At times delightfully disgusting, Suckers is a completely original horror story and as crazy as the premise is, it certainly seems within the realm of possibility.

Available now, as a paperback and for the Kindle, through Amazon.com Suckers is one horror fans shouldn't miss.

Definitely recommended. show less

After reading the summary I expected more of a B-movie like novel with all the right ingredients: creepy creatures, vampires, blood. While the opening scene fed my expectations perfectly, the book turned out to be very different and so much better.

For the first half, 'Suckers' crawls along almost at snail pace, and had I stopped here I would have given only two stars. But then, after being lulled into a deep slumber, I was jolted awake by the sudden turn of events, and a so far unimpressive show more book morphed into a perfect story. At the end I found that I really loved 'Suckers' and I couldn't believe I ever even thought about tossing it aside.

The characters are well developed - also thanks to the slow start, but that I only realized afterwards). The donation part was weird, the donors being much stranger than our sucking main character, but it showed a great deal about friendship and loyalty (and I liked the funny ads).

If you can be patient for a while, you are in for a great story which is not so much about bloodsucking creatures but about real friends and how together they manage to go through it all.

(I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review) show less

2,5 stars

I received this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Dean Thibodeaux is the lead guitarist in the failing band "Man Made Murder": on the night before the band's departure for a tour none of them is very sanguine about, he follows a shady biker to an abandoned shack, with the goal of buying some drugs, but the guy reveals himself as a vampire who then proceeds to attack Dean. The guitarist, badly hurt and shocked, manages to escape and drive over the vampire with his show more truck: once he rejoins the band for the tour he worries at the terrible changes his body is undergoing. Carl Delacroix is a man obsessed: hunting for the individual he's convinced killed his younger sister two years before, he goes on a relentless pursuit across the country, following a biker whose appearance and dress are quite similar to Dean Thibodeaux's attacker's…

This is the intriguing premise of Man Made Murder: this novel develops along two separate threads that are destined to connect and does so with a steady, fast-paced progression that manages to show the inevitability of events while at the same time keeping narrative and emotional tension at the highest levels. What happens to the two main characters can be described as a train-wreck in progress: you know how certain situations are going to end, and yet you are incapable of taking your eyes off the page and need to go on, to the bitter end. There is an overall darkness in this story, a darkness of the soul that has nothing to do with what happens to the characters but is rather something they already carry within themselves. It's obvious for Carl, because of the enormous guilt weighing on him for the failure to protect his younger sister, but it's less so for Dean who - despite the downward spiral of the band - has a lot going for him, not least the strong sense of camaraderie, of family, enjoyed by the group of musicians.

These are the book's points of strength, and the very reason I stayed with it until the end - which is not a real end because this is the first volume in a trilogy and the last chapter hints at story developments that are just as intriguing as the premise: why then did I give such a low rating to Man Made Murder?

One of the reasons is characterization, and particularly Carl's: on one side it's understandable that he would cave in under the mountain of guilt for not being there when his sister needed him most, but his determination - his obsession - to find her killer when the police all but abandon the search is fueled more by whining self-recrimination than true desire to see justice done. When he finally finds the man he believes killed his Sophie, events conspire to take his vengeance from him: does he rant and rave about the unfairness of it all? No. His attitude is rather: "Oh, well, the guy's dead anyway and I didn't even get blood on my hands. Let's go home and have pizza!" The situation gets even worse when Carl discovers a chilling truth about the man he thought was his only friend: he does not mourn so much his blindness in not seeing the signs, he grieves (and whines, of course) because now he's all alone in the world…
To say I was puzzled would be a huge understatement: there was such a massive buildup in his search for vengeance and justice, that the aftermath seems like the proverbial mouse birthed by a mountain.
For his part, Dean seems to move in a sort of drugged state that's understandable from the point of view of what happened - and is still happening - to him, but at the same time gives us nothing of who and what he is underneath all this.

Neither of these characters does anything to emotionally involve me: while I was able to follow the story with keen interest, for the reasons I stated above, I could not summon any empathy for them, and to me this is quite wrong.

The other factor at the root of my displeasure is the author's seeming fascination with the f* word in its many variations, as well as with bodily functions: if, from a certain point of view, I understand that these are elements that contribute to the grittiness of a story, from another the abuse of those same elements can defeat its own purpose and turn gritty into grotesque. I doubt that this was the intent in this particular choice, but my reaction to these endless repetitions was a mixture of boredom and annoyance: again, not the kind of reaction I expect from an otherwise riveting tale. In other words, great ideas but faulty delivery, and a great disappointment.


Review published at SPACE and SORCERY Blog show less

Musician Dan Ferry gets bitten by a bat-like creature and starts to feel different during the days that follow. He got nasty headaches. And, a buzzing feeling every time he touches another person. But the most worrying part his growing need for human blood...

I actually came to enjoy this book towards the end and that is more than I expected, especially since I was thinking of giving up on the book for a long while. I just had a damn hard time getting into the story, what made me keep show more reading was pure stubbornness and the fact that Dan and Ray's friendship throughout the book was really great. I just wish the story had been better. In the beginning, I listened to the book and then I went over to read it as an ebook and I was skimming a bit just to get through the boring parts. But somewhere along the way, the book got better and better.

Unfortunately, the beginning and most of the middle was just not that interesting. Dan got bitten by a "vampire bat" and started to change and get a taste for blood. Ray never gave up on his best friend and stayed by his side and helped him. Then, came the part when more and more people were attacked and suddenly the story takes a dystopian turn and that is when I start to really like the book. The ending is a bit sad.

I'm glad I never gave up on and continued to read the book. It may have been slow in the beginning, but towards the end, the story improved enough to make it enjoyable to read.

2.5 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! show less